Catching Water in a Net

by J. L. Abramo

  “And to think that some people have the nerve to suggest that a law degree from the University of Martinique isn’t worth every square inch of paper it’s printed on,” I said.

  “That’s pretty funny coming from a PI who couldn’t find his own mouth without zeroing in on it with the neck of a bourbon bottle.”

  Dick Spencer and I had mutual feelings for each other.

  I’d often suspected that it was Spencer who put Sally up to sending me the spousal maintenance statement every month.

  “Why not simply tell us about Jimmy’s will and then just throw us out.”

  “Don’t you want to congratulate me first? I’m getting married.”

  “Who’s the lucky girl?” I asked.

  Not that I cared. I just wanted to put a face on the poor woman so that I could picture who to feel sorry for.

  “I’ll give you a hint. You won’t have make support payments anymore, not that it really changes anything.”

  The thought that my ex-wife Sally was the poor woman in question was as revolting as the stringy piece of mozzarella and tomato sauce hanging off Vinnie’s sleeve.

  Speaking of Vinnie, he finally mustered up enough courage to jump into the conversation.

  “I don’t get it,” he said, “are we talking about Jimmy’s will or what? You guys lost me at the part about the bourbon bottle.”

  Vinnie wasn’t very bright. In some circles, calling Vinnie stupid might be considered an insult to stupid people.

  “That’s wonderful news, Dick,” I said, anxious to get past it, “now how about telling Vinnie if he hit the jackpot before the kid crawls out of his skin.”

  “Five grand and a 1985 Olds Ninety-eight,” Spencer said.

  “Vinnie gets five thousand dollars and Jimmy’s car?”

  “Or, to put it a third way, one-half of Pigeon’s life insurance benefit and the gas-guzzler. The other half, five thousand dollars if you’re not up to doing the arithmetic yourself, goes to you Diamond. Minus the twenty-five hundred you owe Sally. Plus all of Jimmy’s surveillance gear, which I would guess consists mostly of tin cans connected with string.”

  “That’s it?” said Vinnie Stradivarius.

  Vinnie was a stickler for clarification.

  “Jimmy had twenty thousand in an individual retirement account which he left to Tina Bella Pazzo. He thought she might need a little grubstake if she decided to put some distance between herself and the maniac she calls a husband. And there’s some furniture and clothing that looks like it came off the set of Saturday Night Fever, but you’ll have to fight it out with the Salvation Army over custody.”

  “How about Jimmy’s half of Ex-Con.com?” asked Vinnie.

  “It went a different route entirely.”

  “Which route would that be, Dick?” I asked.

  “I’m not obligated to say anything about that if the party in question prefers to remain anonymous.”

  “I’m lost again,” said Vinnie, “who gets Jimmy’s half of the business?”

  I gave Vinnie a look that shut him up. It wouldn’t last long.

  “Look, Dick. That information could be a lead to who killed Jimmy.”

  “Detective Boyle had the same idea when he dropped in on me a few days ago. I told him what he needed to know. I feel as if I’ve done my civic duty.”

  “And Boyle told you not to talk to me?”

  “He didn’t have to Diamond.”

  “When can I get my five grand?” asked Vinnie. He seemed to have lost interest in the larger issues.

  “Keep your shirt on, Vinnie”, I said.

  “Look Diamond. I’m sure this will come as no surprise, but I dislike you. A lot. However, I did like Jimmy Pigeon. And I somehow believe that your interest in all of this has to do with what happened to Jimmy and not about what he left behind. So I’ll tell you this much, just to save you from your own sordid imagination.”

  I was interested enough not to interrupt Dick’s eloquent preface.

  I could at least give him a ten count.

  “Jimmy had a wife,” Spencer went on. “He walked out on her years ago. She remarried soon after and she was recently widowed. Jimmy had me sending her money every few months to help her out. Jimmy named her in his will. And that’s all I will say about it.”

  “You won’t tell me who or where she is?”

  “No I won’t. Why should I, when your good pal Jimmy Pigeon wouldn’t even tell you about her?”

  Spencer had a good point. And it stuck right in.

  “I want to be sure I’m straight on this, Dick. Evelyn Harding and perhaps Jimmy’s ex-wife split the million if they sell to Walter Richman?”

  If I didn’t come up with a motive soon I would be back up at Willie Dogtail’s begging him for more of his coffee.

  “I wouldn’t count Harry Harding out yet,” Spencer said, “but that’s beside the point.”

  “You can count Harry out; he took a bullet in the head earlier today.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “As a heart attack. What’s beside the point?”

  “Richman withdrew his offer.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Oh?” Spencer said.

  I rebounded before Vinnie could open his mouth again.

  “So is the business worth anything?” I asked.

  “That’s not my area Diamond. I was Pigeon’s lawyer, not his business advisor. You’d have to talk to whoever he used for financial counsel.”

  “And who would that have been?”

  “There you go again, Diamond. You were his good buddy. You tell me.”

  Spencer just couldn’t resist the extra thrust.

  “Thanks a lot Dick.”

  “It’s nothing Diamond,” he said.

  I couldn’t have said it better.

  Before we left Dick Spencer he told Vinnie to drop by on Monday afternoon to pick up a check for five thousand dollars. He also told me I could pick up my twenty-five hundred.

  I told him that he and Sally could keep it for a wedding present. Invest in ear plugs and body armor.

  I was having a hard time reconciling how out of touch I had been with Jimmy. Even from inside the joint Sam the Sham knew more about what was going on with Pigeon than I had.

  At the front desk I asked Dick’s receptionist if I could use the phone, which she reluctantly allowed. She likely had a spray can of Lysol handy for when I was done. I called Willie Dogtail to make sure it would be all right to unload Vinnie on him for the weekend. I had some thinking to do, with minimal distraction.

  It was still early so I treated Vinnie to dinner just to kill time. We sat in a diner at San Pedro and Temple near City Hall for more than two hours. In silence.

  Vinnie was perceptive enough for a change to sense my mood and was afraid to open his mouth.

  I really had nothing to say.

  “Dogtail says you’re welcome to hang at his place until Monday if you like, Vin,” I said as we pulled up in front of my cousin Bobby’s place just after eight, “you can play the ponies on the weekend and you’ll love his coffee.”

  “I don’t mind staying to give you a leg up, Jake.”

  “Thanks, Vinnie,” I said, “but no thanks.”

  “Okay, pal. You’ll call if you need me, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He got out of the Impala, got into his rental, and drove off.

  I got out and started for Bobby’s door but veered toward the corner package store, thinking I could use a little help from George Dickel to work out my next move.

  After three straight shots I knew that I wasn’t going to work out much at all.

  Somehow I did manage to conclude that although I was done with trying to locate Harry Harding for his wife, I had no better idea than to pay Evelyn a visit.

  After the fourth shot I decided that it would wait until morning.

  I picked up the Dickens book and took it into the bedroom with the bottle.

  Paris. 1775.

  A k
eg of wine had fallen off a carriage and spilled its contents onto the cobble-stoned street. Bystanders of all ages and social class rushed over and began collecting the liquid with cupped hands, ceramic bowls, spoons and handkerchiefs. A woman sopped up wine with her scarf and squeezed drops into the mouth of her hungry infant.

  It was a disheartening depiction of the unquenchable thirst and despair in the city. Not much different from the feeling I got being back in Los Angeles.

  Jimmy Pigeon had loved LA.

  I thought about the first case that Jimmy had brought me in on.

  A friend had come to Jimmy, worried about his wife.

  The woman worked as Assistant to a Los Angeles City Councilman. She had overheard a conversation between the Councilman and a local contractor.

  The Council was about to decide on bids for the construction of a new piece of freeway. The contractor was there to buy a vote.

  It was nothing new, it went on all the time, and everyone turned deaf and blind and filled their pockets.

  The woman was afraid for her job, Jimmy’s friend was afraid for his wife, and my advice would have been to forget that she had heard anything.

  But Jimmy Pigeon had LA in mind. It was his home, and he took the sanctity of his home seriously. So Jimmy went to work.

  The contractor lost the bid, the Councilman lost his job, the woman won his seat on the Council, and Jimmy Pigeon slept easy.

  “I love LA, Jake, as much as I’ve ever loved anything,” Jimmy told me, “she makes me feel alive. I tried to leave once but she pulled me back. I do what I can to keep her honest.”

  I don’t know. I suppose that being in the midst of so many walking dead could make anyone with a touch of self-esteem feel alive. And Jimmy had more than a little self-esteem.

  Jimmy Pigeon was sure of who he was and pleased with himself. He loved his life so much that it rubbed off on everyone he came in contact with.

  Almost everyone.

  There must have been at least one person who Jimmy couldn’t win over, and somehow that person had gotten close enough to Jimmy to put him under the ground.

  I closed the Dickens’ book and took another long pull from the bourbon bottle. I lay back in the bed. It was a lot more welcoming than the motel bed in Obispo and the futon at Willie Dogtail’s place, though I could have done without the silk sheets.

  I set down the bottle and picked up the TV remote.

  I found an old John Garfield movie.

  Lana Turner was talking Garfield into helping murder her husband while making him think that it was his idea all the time.

  I knew how it ended and before it did I was out cold.

  Nine

  I woke up wondering whether George Dickel drank much of his own bourbon and, if he did, how he ever managed to run a business. I could smell the coffee brewing in the kitchen. I decided to check it out before hitting the shower and found a business card leaning against the coffee maker. On the back of the card was written: Ran out to get half-and-half. I turned it over to where it simply read Detective R. Boyle, LAPD. I jumped into the shower, hoping that Ray would at least come back with doughnuts.

  When I returned to the kitchen Boyle was sitting at the table with a mug of coffee in one hand and a chocolate-dipped in the other. Good man. I helped myself to a cup, added some cream and grabbed a honey-glazed.

  “Don’t care for soy milk, Ray?” I said.

  “I just came from visiting a friend of yours at LA General Hospital.”

  “Could you be more specific?” I asked.

  Not that I had that many friends.

  “Dick Spencer.”

  “Did he say who put him there?”

  “Wouldn’t say, but I hear you dropped in on him yesterday. I thought you could enlighten me.”

  “No idea. He going to be all right?”

  “Depends on whether you think he was ever all right.”

  “Point well taken. Sorry I can’t help you. How’d you find me?”

  “Yahoo! Search.”

  “Cute.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be. I was just wondering why everyone you visit down here has such bad luck,” he said.

  “I hope you figure it out.”

  “I was going to suggest you head back up to San Francisco before you put a hex on anyone else.”

  “Haven’t we been through this before, Ray?”

  “More times than I care to remember. How’s that doughnut?”

  “Very good. Krispy Kreme?”

  “Safeway. Your pal Vinnie still around?”

  “I’d bet you could find him at Santa Anita at post time. How did you know he was down here?”

  “You just told me. Don’t forget to take him along with you when you head back.”

  “Spencer said that Jimmy had a wife, way back when, and that he’d been sending money. Do you think she figures in this somehow?”

  “I don’t think so,” Boyle said, and then to assure me that it was all he had to say about it he repeated, “Don’t forget to take Strings along with you when you head back.”

  “Sure. You can take the rest of the donuts back to the precinct.”

  I had a strong hunch about who had danced on Dick Spencer’s head and not two minutes after Boyle left, leaving the half-and-half and taking the doughnuts, my theory was confirmed.

  When I opened the door I was instantly reminded of why Jimmy Pigeon had taken the risk.

  “Can I come in Jake?”

  “Sure, Tina,” I said, letting her pass, “care for some coffee?”

  “That would be great. Have any doughnuts?”

  “Half a honey-glazed, help yourself,” I said, following her into the kitchen.

  Tina Bella Pazzo was a handsome woman. I poured her a cup and sat across from her at the kitchen table.

  “What’s up, Tina?”

  “I need some help, Jake.”

  “I haven’t been too lucky for people lately, Tina.”

  She was nervously playing table hockey with the half-eaten doughnut.

  “I don’t know who else to turn to, Jake,” she said.

  How come that one always worked with me?

  “I’ll listen.”

  “Crazy Al is looking for me and I don’t think it’s to bring me flowers. I was pretty well hid but I think Dick Spencer may have leaked my location.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, it looks like Dick did hold out for quite a while.”

  “Yeah, I heard that Al’s gorilla really tattooed him.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “Spencer. He called me from the hospital to warn me. He had to write it down for the nurse to read since his jaw is wired shut.”

  I had told Spencer where I was staying. I guess he wrote it down for the nurse to read to Ray Boyle also.

  “That was sweet of him. What do you expect me to do, Tina?”

  “I just need a place to lay low until my money from Jimmy comes through and I can disappear to Mexico or somewhere.”

  “Did Al kill Jimmy?”

  “No. Someone beat him to it. Al has a good alibi. Unfortunately he was with me when Jimmy was killed.”

  “Any ideas about who the somebody who beat him to it might be? I hear that you and Jimmy were compromising Al’s conjugal rights. Jimmy talk in his sleep?”

  “Jimmy didn’t talk to me about cases Jake. You should know that.”

  “He ever talk to you about a wife?”

  “And Jimmy didn’t talk about other women. It was none of my business. But I can’t picture Jimmy as a married man.”

  I guessed that Jimmy couldn’t picture it either.

  “It was ancient history,” I said.

  “He didn’t talk history either. He was more interested in anatomy. Are you going to help me, Jake?”

  “Okay, Tina, for Jimmy’s sake. You can stay at my place up in San Francisco while I’m down here. I’ll try to get Spencer to slip your inheritance to me and I’ll bring it up. I hope you realize that you’re putting m
e in danger.”

  “I thought that danger was your middle name, Jake.”

  “No, Tina. That was Jimmy’s middle name. I’ll call Darlene and tell her to expect you; she’ll give you the keys to my flat. Go ahead, finish that doughnut.”

  After Tina left I gave Darlene a call up at the office. I asked Darlene to set Tina up at my place and then stay far away from her. I told Darlene that if anyone dropped by at the office and strongly insisted that she let on where Tina was holed up she shouldn’t hesitate coming clean. I had my priorities in order.

  “Anything exciting going on up there?” I asked.

  “A couple of calls, but I had to put them off. I tried to find Vinnie to cover but thankfully he’s not around.”

  “Yeah, I know. He’s down here.”

  “That must delight you. When will you be back?”

  “Soon I hope.”

  “Are you making any money at least?”

  “As a matter of fact, no.”

  “You’re going to blow your shot at Bay Area Businessman of the Year.”

  “Five years in a row.”

  “Jake.”

  “Yes Darlene.”

  “Be careful.”

  “You too. Remember if it’s between you or Tina getting hurt…”

  “Gotcha,” she said.

  “I’ll stay in touch,” I said.

  “Please do. By the way.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have some mail piling up.”

  “Anything that isn’t a bill?”

  “One or two pieces. Want me to open them?”

  “Sure. Open everything. Let me know if there’s anything important, I’ll be here at my cousin’s place unless you hear different or unless anyone asks.”

  I thought about phoning Evelyn Harding to announce my intention to call on her but decided not to give her the opportunity to tell me not to bother. Judging from the way I had been forewarned by my visitors since I’d been there, I figured that in Los Angeles Emily Post was pretty much ignored. Vinnie and Tina had popped in unannounced, and Boyle hadn’t even bothered to knock.

  I looked up the address of the Harding residence in the phone book and dressed for the occasion. I really did need to get a few more ties. I borrowed one of Bobby’s.

  I hopped into my car; downing the last of the honey-glazed that Tina had only pushed around, and directed the Chevy out to Beverly Hills.